The summer of 1863 had gone badly for the Army of Tennessee. Outmaneuvered at Tullahoma, Bragg's army gave up Middle Tennessee and then Chattanooga, falling back into north Georgia. Otho Strahl, the 4th Tennessee's old colonel, now commanded the brigade as a brigadier general, and the 4th and 5th Tennessee marched under Colonel Jonathan J. Lamb. Merritt Brown was with them, and that autumn he was promoted to 2nd corporal. On September 11 his father died at home in Collierville. Eight days later the army turned and fought along Chickamauga Creek.
On the morning of September 19, Cheatham's division crossed the creek and went in with Strahl's brigade in the second line. When Preston Smith's brigade, ahead of them, was battered in the Brock Field and called for help, Strahl's men moved up to take its place. General Cheatham reported that Strahl's and Maney's brigades, sent forward to take the place of Jackson's and Smith's, were struck in front and on both flanks by superior numbers and forced back. Luke Finlay remembered Lieutenant W. W. Webber falling during one of those withdrawals under fire, still calling to his men, "Boys, keep your lines dressed!" That night the brigade slept in line of battle in the Brock Field.
On the evening of September 20, the brigade moved forward with the whole right wing of the army as the Union line gave way. The Federals fell back into Chattanooga, and the 4th followed close behind. It was the greatest Confederate victory in the West, and one of the costliest battles of the war. The 4th and 5th Tennessee lost 33 men; Strahl's brigade, 250.
The Wigfall Grays at Chickamauga. H. B. Walter was wounded on September 19. Private John W. Halley, sick since early September, was detailed to guard the Union prisoners taken in the battle on the way to Richmond.
Sources: Report of Maj. Gen. B. F. Cheatham, Official Records, Ser. I, Vol. 30, Pt. 2, pp. 77–80; National Park Service, The Battles for Chickamauga; Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park tablets; Luke W. Finlay, "Fourth Tennessee Infantry," Military Annals of Tennessee (1886); Tennesseans in the Civil War (1964); compiled service records, National Archives; Morton Museum of Collierville History, master roster of the Wigfall Grays.
The story of Corporal Merritt R. Brown, the Wigfall Grays and their town is told in An Honor Unearned: From the Streets of Collierville, Tennessee, to Edgefield, South Carolina, by Michael Louis Meece. Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. More about the book at anhonorunearned.org.